FOLLOWING President Rodrigo Duterte's threat to arrest the so-called "legal fronts" aiding the National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Communist Party of the Philippines (NDFP-CPP) in committing terrorism, the National Union of Poeple's Lawyers (NUPL) has spoken.
Without mentioning a certain group, the President asserted that mere "conspiracy" could be a basis for filing rebellion charges against those who have been helping the members of the communist group he has earlier branded as "terrorists" following his order to cancel the peace negotiations.
The group has been assisting legally some left-leaning personalities, including political prisoners and peace negotiators who participated in the peace talks. The NUPL is headed by known activists Edre Olalia as president and Neri Colmenares as chairman. Colmenares was one of the thousands who suffered from human rights violations during the Marcos regime.
Here is what they said:
TERRORIZING THE UNTERRIFIED
In the first place, the Human Security Act is in the same mold as other draconian legal measures that sweepingly covers even legitimate forms of protest, dissent and resistance.
The definition of "terrorism" in the controversial 2007 law that has been hitherto rarely used is so broad, so expansive, and so ambiguous that it can be subjectively used to punish universally-accepted democratic rights of peoples such as freedoms of speech, expression, assembly, redress of grievances, and the right to self-determination.
In the context of the present dispensation to throw its mailed fist to legitimate criticism, ardent struggle for reforms or intense advocacies in the interest of the people, this legal offensive is, rather offensive.
The use of the strong arm of the law by those in temporary and temporal power to ignore or suppress the people's rights
has time and time again been proven to be a failure and a bad move.
Past and contemporary events and experience have consistently demonstrated that authoritarian rule by fear and fury will in time have its day of reckoning in various forms and arenas.
A united people militantly fighting for freedom, consistently asserting national sovereignty, arduously working for real economic benefits, and intensely advocating democratic individual and collective rights cannot be intimidated or terrified by State terrorism clothed in legal garb or camouflaged by convoluted pretenses.#
National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL)
